DeSales University's new Gambet Center opening next month

View full sizeThe Gambet Center, DeSales University's newest academic building, will house health care and business majors. Photo Courtesy of DeSales University

Featuring amenities ranging from simulation laboratories with breathing mannequins to a specialized business classroom that replicates a commodities trading floor, DeSales University’s newest facility is ready to open to students next month.

The university plans a ribbon-cutting ceremony at noon April 5 for the Gambet Center for Business and Healthcare.

Located at Landis Mill Road and Station Avenue on the campus in Upper Saucon Township, the 77,000-square-foot center is the culmination of a nearly $27 million investment, according to university officials.

The idea dates back about six years when DeSales President Bernard F. O’Connor and Peter Leonard, the university’s dean of graduate education, toured medical facilities in the region, according to a news release.

“It became very obvious that there was, even at that time, a great shortage of qualified professionals to support their work,” O’Connor said in a statement. “The result was a decision by DeSales University to respond to this need. Today, you see the results of this response.”

The first floor is dedicated to the university’s health care programs, which includes both undergraduate and graduate degree offerings in nursing. In addition to traditional classrooms and offices, the floor features laboratories with state-of-the-art mannequins that imitate the vital patterns of humans; they breathe, have a pulse and react to various drugs, the release says.

The second floor of the center is devoted to the university’s business programs. PPL EnergyPlus, a subsidiary of Allentown-based PPL Corp., sponsored a specialized trading wing on the floor that includes the classroom replicating the commodities trading floor, complete with a digital stock market exchange ticker, according to the news release.

DeSales spokesman Tom McNamara said faculty and staff moved in to the center earlier this month during the university’s spring break. It’s up to individual faculty members if they want to move their undergraduate classes in to the center for the final weeks of the spring semester, but it’s open to them starting April 8, McNamara said.

The Gambet Center is named after the Rev. Daniel G. Gambet, president emeritus of DeSales.